Foreign residents in Korea paid almost 1.58 trillion gained ($1.11 billion) in health insurance premiums, and the variety of foreigners caught illegally receiving insurance cash decreased considerably last year.
Based on the evaluation of information on the National Health Insurance Service, Rep. Koh Young-in of the principle opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) stated Thursday that the NHIS collected 1,579.3 billion gained from overseas residents — 1.11 trillion gained from overseas subscribers working for firms and 464.8 billion gained from individually insured foreigners – last year.
Among foreigners who paid health insurance premiums, about 480,000 had been firm workers with 190,000 dependents, and 560,000 had been personally insured. The measurement of dependents of overseas office subscribers was one-third of that of Korean company subscribers.
The variety of overseas health insurance subscribers continued to extend from 889,891 in 2017 to 946,756 in 2018, 1,212,475 in 2019, 1,182,341 in 2020, and 1,237,278 in 2021.
The variety of company subscribers and their dependents elevated comparatively little in comparison with district subscribers, who greater than doubled in quantity. The variety of domestically insured overseas subscribers jumped from 264,000 in 2017 to 564,765 in 2021. In distinction, office subscribers elevated from 443,760 in 2017 to 480,604 in 2021, and their dependents climbed from 182,131 to 191,909 throughout the identical interval.
Notably, it was confirmed that the variety of unlawful receipts of insurance cash, which induced controversy over “medical shopping,” has additionally dropped considerably.
The circumstances of unlawful receipts of health insurance cash by foreigners declined from 185 in 2018 to 125 in 2019, 80 in 2020, and 50 in 2021. The decided quantity additionally fell from 199 million gained in 2018 to 62 million gained in 2021 and to 46 million gained in August 2022.
“Foreigners’ financial contribution to health insurance premiums is significant,” Rep. Koh stated. “The impression of foreigners’ medical shopping should not be misled to represent the whole because they are limited to only a few cases.”
